Month: January 2011

Well, here we are. A mere three prompts from completing this round of Grow With Love. The Kids edition has inspired me to create some of my most favorite pages and I hope it has you as well!

And if you happen to be finding us for the first time, we hope you will be encouraged by all the posts and prompts so far (you can find them here) to dive in at any time. There is never a “wrong time” or “too late” for telling your story.

So let’s take a peek at the Day Eighteen. We have journeyed into some heavier hope and “big picture” centered pages as well as some little moment and everyday pages. And today we will let ourselves relish the moments across the years. We will allow ourselves to get nostalgic and compare the yesterday and today:

I have a couple different pages for this brewing in my brain…and that’s what I think I love most about this prompt. There are so many different creative avenues to take as we get retrospective. Oodles of photos? A handful of “key” photos and oodles of journaling? A mix of both? A compare and contrast kind of page? A then and now? Graphic in style? Traditional paper in style? Clustery and whimsical in style? I found myself going in all these different directions and that was exciting! I love when inspiration fills me to the brim, so to speak. And so I started in one place and I look forward to going in others as well.

I think many of us have pages of our children that capture them in the moment in time…or even in a “summary of the time” kind of page where we reflect on them generally at a certain age or in a certain month. We have done both in this project alone. This page encourages us to reflect on the whole story. The then and now, the across time, the yesterday and today kind of goodness. It has us whipping out the old photos AND the new ones. Thinking about the bygone memories AND the one’s we just planted yesterday. And that’s storytelling on a different dimension.

And you’ve probably noticed by now that I’m a BIG fan of “and” not “or” so this makes my creative heart happy.

So here’s a page that captures the spirit of the prompt. And I am eager to explore the other avenues I feel tugging on me.

journaling: Every now and then I am struck with a flood of nostalgia and sentimentality, thinking about how blessed I have been over the years and how quickly time passes by. I remember my grandma telling me that every year time passes faster, and I was so young at the time that it didn’t resonate with me. But now I see exactly what she meant. It seems only a blink ago and I was holding you in my arms for the first time. There are days I wish everything would slow down so I could savor you a little longer.

We so hope you have fun with this one! You will be hopping over to Crystal on Thursday for Day 19 of GWL:Kids and I will be posting the first prompt for GWL: Letters {february} on Wednesday!

Floating by with a spot of special storyteller news on this fine Friday. Crystal and I are hoping to assemble a small team of digital and/or paper scrappers exclusively for our Grow With Love projects and releases. We are looking for individuals who value scrapping their stories as much as we do, who love to journal, or who want to grow in their journaling with us. And so…a {call}.

specifically we are looking for digital or paper scrapbook artists that:

consider themselves storytellers and enjoy journaling

can work with a deadline

are active in the community or social media/blogging

our Grow With Love team requirements are:

work with each new Grow With Love series prior to release (you will typically have access to new products at least one week in advance)

upload to your page(s) to your favorite gallery and /or social media

if you are inspired to plant your story with us please submit:

three layouts that showcase your storytelling

a link to your favorite gallery

a list of your current CT commitments

a short bio about yourself

If this sounds like something you’re interested in please feel free to submit inquiries to creativecall@plantyourstory.com by 5 February 2011. We will respond to every email we get to confirm receipt.

I’m happy to share two fresh releases today that are rooted in my most favorite thing: storytelling and documenting.

I’m happy to share with you the next set of templates and prompts for the Grow With Love: Letters Edition as featured in the Aritsan Notebook. This {february} installment dives in to letter writing that is, naturally, inspired by the spirit of LOVE. The prompts will inspire us to reflect on love stories past, present, and future as we communicate our heartsongs through pen and paper. Here’s a peek:

The next installment of life {documented} with Tiny Toes Designs also lands at The Pad this week. Katrina and I are happy to share this fresh set of templates that will coordinate beautifully with any P365, P52, or photo-a-day kind of project. They can also be used fabulously in a general papery or multi-photo way. Meet volume two of life {documented}:

I’ve included another set of simple date elements for clipping for February as well:

Welcome to Week Eight and Day Sixteen of the Grow With Love: Kids Edition project! We are getting down to it now with only a few prompts left until we will have created 20 story centric pages full of emotion and truth and fun for our children. We hope you have loved diving in to these prompts as much as we have and that you find yourself feeling encouraged and edified in your storytelling and memory keeping! I know, for me, this project has already evolved my perspective for how I approach my scrapping and I can’t wait to continue scrapping pages for my sweet Bugga like this.

Today’s prompt is a fun one and pretty light in mood and we hope you have fun with it! Let’s peek:

I have always been a lover of music and so it’s kind of had a way of infusing itself in to my own scrapping. I have a few ongoing album projects that are music and lyric centered and so this prompt was one I was really excited about. I am still working on mine, and can’t wait to share it with you. In the mean time, we can’t wait to see how you were inspired by this prompt. Did you share your favorites? Your kids’ favorites? Did you compare your musical tastes to theirs?

Hope you have fun scrapping! Maybe listen to a few tunes while you scrap. Woot!

I am happy to share Day Three of the Grow With Love: Letters project today! In Day One we set our compasses for the year and in Day Two we made a deliberate effort to focus on the positive foundations of ourselves. Today’s post ventures into sharing encouragement and gaining big picture perspective. Let’s take a peek:

Right from the off I could see how this may be a heavy page for myself. There is a page I’ve been wanting needing to scrap for almost two years now. But it’s one of those emotional, cathartic types and frankly I’ve been avoiding it. Not entirely intentionally, but it was easy to scrap the other lighter things. And so I have been. In fact, I actually tried to think of something else to scrap for this prompt. But this page kept tugging at me and it turns out this prompt was a perfect and timely opportunity to finally dive in. Because this page that has been brewing is a perfect example of a “hindsight is 20-20” moment for me.

So for me, it was a bit challenging. But then, also amazingly empowering and encouraging. The whole process of scrapping this prompt became a reminder for me of the big picture. And my big picture is framed by my beliefs and experiences, but it tells me that even in those moments when I feel so out of control, there is a plan (and a better one than my own). My lesson was, to a degree, at its core: “when you are grateful fear disappears and abundance appears”. It can be so reassuring and reaffirming to look back in hindsight and be able to discern the reasons for the tougher moments. And to learn from them so when faced with challenges in the future I can rely on what I know is true instead of being guided solely by the moments in the present.

So, all that said. My page looks a little dark and scary (and if anyone is familiar with my scrapping, I don’t do dark and scary). BUT really the message for me, the process for me, and the hindsight I am communicating is…light and beautiful and amazing. I think I may do a second accompaniment page for this prompt. To kind of echo the beauty of hindsight. Because two years later, things are not this dark.

So how does this prompt speak to you? Do you have a moment, like me, that is clear to you now, but that seemed muddy once upon a time? Or is your hindsight moment one full of humour? Is it a “note to self”? Think about some of the lessons you feel you’ve learned in life and trace it back to the beginning…how did you learn it? Where does your wisdom in life come from? What experiences got you to where you are? Consider all of that as you think of writing this letter.

Can’t wait to see! Happy Growing and Happy Scrapping!

Crystal will be presenting the fourth prompt for Letters next Wednesday.

Happy Monday! Welcome (back) to Grow With Love: Kids Edition. So…here we are. We are picking up where we left off and I’m so thrilled to be getting us back into these posts. Crystal and I have been loving them so far and we are eager to step in to the final sequence of prompts and pages for our kids project!! If you need to get caught up feel free to head back to the beginning or catch up on the latest update post. As always we are so happy to welcome anyone who wants to dive in at any time and we hope you have fun making this project your own! Most of all we hope you find it fulfilling and thought-provoking, fun and impactful.

So let’s take a peek at what’s next. Here is the prompt for Day Fourteen:

This is a prompt that has so many possibilities for direction. I can envision many funny pages…maybe that it might be a good idea to invest in Mr. Clean Magic Erasers:

Or that there is such a thing as Toddler Math. And one of the primary formulas to remember is: giving your toddler a bit of time to herself + silence = trouble. (Incidentally please forgive the horrific photography of this linked toddler math post. It was before the days of a decent camera and before the days of my knowing anything about photography. I still don’t know much, but as you’ll see..at least there’s been progress. lol!!).

But there may also be pages brewing of a more serious tone, and that’s the direction I took with mine as I reflected on this prompt. I decided to share a “wish someone told me” about some of the negative feelings that emerge in moments of parental frustration, or sheer exhaustion…I suppose, looking back, if I was being realistic I had to expect that these moments would happen. But I think I always felt that my gooey-oozy-HUGE-never-before-experienced-unconditional kind of love would manage to ourweigh any irritations I might feel toward my child. And, in the end, it does. But the truth is, sometimes I feel frustrated. Sometimes I even feel irritated. Sometimes I let those feelings direct my mood. And then, almost immediately feel incredible guilt for having felt that way in the first place. So I wish someone would have told me this would happen. That I am not alone. That it’s rather normal. And so…my page:

I went with stark background and photoless because it seemed to suit both the wish and the insecurity of “confessing” these feelings.

When you reflect on this prompt, no matter what direction you go in..be it fun and silly or more serious..think of how your page design or template transformation can “fit” the story you’re sharing. You can set the mood with design and color as much as you can with words.

We hope you have fun with this one! Can’t wait to see your pages! And don’t forget to check in with Crystal for Day Fifteen on Thursday.